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Re: mites

Originally Posted by jjimgee

H ow often should I suger dust to maintain mite control:

If you're going to try and rely on powdered sugar dusting to control Varroa mite will will need to dust them every 7 days at the minimum. Do you realise that dusting only knocks off about 30-40% of the phoretic mites (mites not under the cap)? It does nothing for the mites that are under the cap reproducing. If you have very low mite count numbers, and if you you dust every 7 days, you will only succeed in holding the current mite count. You never really reduce the mite load using dusting.

Re: mites

Dusting once a week will not lower mite numbers according to Randy, so it can't be used as you're only form of mite control. You would also need open screen bottom boards, & drone comb removal. IPM
You can count mites when dusting a hive by inserting a dry white board before dusting, remove it 20 minutes later & see how many mites are on it. At this time of year if I saw 75 where I live I would get a little more aggressive in controlling the mites.